Takashi Sugimoto

• About
• Works
• Contact

Works

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.— William Blake
“Auguries of Innocence”

Ouro Negro (Black Gold)
2024 / Feature FilmIn a deep rural area of southern India, Saraswathi offers her long black hair to the deity Balaji, tonsured at the temple to fulfil a wish. As is so often the case, someone somewhere in the world profits from her spiritual act.Feature documentary, 100 min, black and white. Produced by Uma Pedra No Sapato. Special Jury Prize, DOCS@PÖFF, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival · Grand Prix, 33rd International Festival of Ethnological Film, Belgrade · Guadalajara IFF, Official Competition · Santo Domingo Global Film Festival.

Spiritus
Photography Book (2026)Spiritus is Latin for breath. Made alongside Ouro Negro, on black-and-white analogue film, and printed with no pure black and no pure white — nothing here is fixed at either end. The images seem about to evaporate into wind and light, and leave nothing behind. A dream, perhaps.Published by XYZ Books, 2026.

Bioerosion
(2025)The object photographed on the opening page. Seagull feathers, rose-ringed parakeet feathers, synthetic human hair, limestone. Approximately 50 × 40 × 20 cm.Shown at Open Studios, Invasive Species?, AiR 351, Cascais, June 2025.

Live Tropical Fish
2015 / Short FilmA woman living alone drifts through the sameness of her days. On a sunlit slope she gathers stray turtles into her arms, for reasons she does not explain. In a room painted entirely black, a white dress gives way to a black T-shirt and lipstick; then, surrounded by towering tanks of tropical fish, she scrapes algae from the glass — until, without warning, she stops, and walks away.Experimental short, 14 min, black and white. Completed 2015. IndieLisboa, National Shorts Competition, 2016.

Nagashima
2009 / Short FilmMinoru Nagashima, a 65-year-old Japanese Impressionist painter, left his family, his friends and his standing in a Tokyo painting society to paint Nature. Ten years into life in Lisbon he has sold more than eight hundred paintings, and still barely speaks Portuguese. “It is impossible for anyone to paint Nature as it is. However, I keep on painting.”Documentary short, 4 min. Made in five days for the International Documentary Challenge. One of twelve international finalists; Best Use of Art Genre Award. Screened at Hot Docs, Toronto, and DokuFest, Prizren.

Live Tropical Fish
2000 / Multimedia InstallationLightbox photographs, a live aquarium, video projection and an infrared-triggered sound field, installed in a darkened church nave. The projected footage is home movies, shot in the US, Italy and Japan, played back among the fish.Memorie Accumulazioni Archivi — Proposte XV, Laboratorio 1. Galleria di San Filippo and Centre Culturel Français, Turin, 16 November – 16 December 2000.Image: the work as reproduced in Zoom, 2002.

• Back

About

Takashi Sugimoto is a Japanese filmmaker and visual artist based in Lisbon. Born in 1975 in Kanagawa, he has lived in Portugal for twenty-five years — half his life. That fact underlies almost everything he makes: what does it mean to belong to a place, or a story, not originally yours?He began in photography, at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Turin and as an intern at Magnum Photos in Paris. His first authorial work, Live Tropical Fish (2000), was a live aquarium installed in a Turin church, shown alongside archival home-movie footage from the US, Italy and Japan and an infrared-triggered sound field. For years afterwards he worked as a cinematographer and sound recordist in Portuguese cinema — what he calls his real film school — before completing a postgraduate diploma in dramaturgy and film direction at ESTC, Lisbon.His first feature documentary, Ouro Negro (Black Gold) (2024), follows human hair from a spiritual offering in rural South India to a migrating global commodity; it received the Special Jury Prize at DOCS@PÖFF, Tallinn Black Nights, and the Grand Prix at the International Festival of Ethnological Film in Belgrade. He is currently developing Stray Birds, an ensemble film voiced in Portuguese, Japanese and Birdsong, and takes part in the collective research project Invasive species? (AiR 351).

Films — Director2024 Ouro Negro (Black Gold)
Feature documentary, 100 min, black and white. Director, screenwriter. Produced by Uma Pedra No Sapato, Portugal2015 – 2016 Live Tropical Fish
Experimental short, 14 min. Completed 2015, premiered at IndieLisboa 2016. Director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor2009 Nagashima
Documentary short, 4 min. Director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, soundIn DevelopmentStray Birds (working title)
Feature documentary in development. An ensemble film, voiced in Portuguese, Japanese and BirdsongInstallations & Objects2025 BioerosionObject. Seagull feathers, rose-ringed parakeet feathers, synthetic human hair, limestone. Aproximately 50 × 40 × 20cm. Shown at Open Studios, Invasive Species?, AiR 351, Cascais, June 20252000 Live Tropical FishMultimedia installation — lightbox photography, ambient sound, a live aquarium and video projection in a darkened church nave, with archival home-movie footage from the US, Italy and Japan and an infrared-triggered sound field. The video component, Cognition, was shown at the Centre Culturel Français. Memorie Accumulazioni Archivi — Proposte XV, Laboratorio 1, Galleria di San Filippo and Centre Culturel Français, Turin, 16 November – 16 December 2000Selected Exhibitions2001 FramesGroup exhibition. American University Gallery, Florence, Italy2001 Senza TitoloGroup exhibition. Galleria Alberto Weber, Turin, ItalyPublications2026 SpiritusThe photography book of Ouro Negro, published by XYZ Books. Black-and-white analogue film, printed with no pure black and no pure whiteSelected Press & Catalogues2024 Portfolio: Takashi Sugimoto, 28 pagesRevista da Fundação Oriente, Annual 2024, Portugal2002 Takashi Sugimoto, 6 pagesZoom, International Bimonthly Magazine, March/April 2002, Italy2001 The ART is a FIFTH elementCatalogue, Premio Querini-FURLA per l'arte, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice, Italy2000 Memorie Accumulazioni ArchiviExhibition catalogue, Proposte XV, Laboratorio 1, Turin, ItalyAwards & Honours2024 Special Jury Prize, DOCS@PÖFF Competition, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, EstoniaOuro Negro2024 Grand Prix, 33rd International Festival of Ethnological Film, Belgrade, SerbiaOuro Negro2011 AIP Award for Best Image in a Portuguese Short Film, IndieLisboa, Portugalas cinematographer, Wakasa2009 Best Use of Art Genre Award, and top-twelve international finalist, International Documentary ChallengeNagashima2001 Nominee, Premio Querini-FURLA per l'arteFondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice, ItalySelected Screenings2025 Guadalajara International Film Festival (FICG), Mexico — Official CompetitionOuro Negro2025 Santo Domingo Global Film Festival, Dominican Republic — Official SelectionOuro Negro2024 DOCS@PÖFF Competition, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, EstoniaOuro Negro2024 33rd International Festival of Ethnological Film, Belgrade, SerbiaOuro Negro2016 IndieLisboa, Portugal — National Shorts CompetitionLive Tropical Fish2009 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Toronto, Canada; DokuFest, Prizren, KosovoNagashimaSelected Commissioned Works2016 Continuidade(Continuity), Eduardo Souto de Moura50 min. Centro Cultural de Belém (CCB), Lisbon, Portugal2013 Mesa (Table), Eduardo Souto de Moura15 min. Archived in the Centre Pompidou Archive, Paris, France2013 Tradition is Innovation120 min. Portuguese Pavilion, 9th São Paulo International Architecture Biennale, BrazilCinematography, Sound & Voice2024 Grand Tour, dir. Miguel GomesJapanese narrator (voice); translation of the Japanese narration. Cannes Film Festival, Official Competition — Best Director2023 Life Railways: Restless Wind (Estações da Vida: Vento da Desordem), dir. Tomás BaltazarCinematographer. Curtas Vila do Conde — competition2020 Amor Fati, dir. Cláudia VarejãoLocation sound recordist. Visions du Réel — world premiere, International Feature Film Competition2016 Ama-San, dir. Cláudia VarejãoLocation sound recordist. Visions du Réel — world premiere; Karlovy Vary IFF — Special Mention; DocLisboa — Grand Prize, Portuguese Competition2013 Campo de Flamingos sem Flamingos (Flamingo Field Without Flamingos), dir. André PríncipeCinematographer. IndieLisboa — National Competition2013 Bibliografia, dir. João Manso and Miguel MansoCinematographer. IndieLisboa; 31st Torino Film Festival — Waves2012 Terra de Ninguém (No Man's Land), dir. Salomé LamasCinematographer. Berlinale Forum 2013; Documentary Fortnight, MoMA, New York; DocLisboa — Best Portuguese Feature2011 Wakasa, dir. José Manuel FernandesCinematographer. IndieLisboa — AIP Best Image Award in a Portuguese Short FilmResearch, Juries & Teaching2025 – Participating artist, Invasive species?Transdisciplinary research project on the migration of the term from ecology into social and political discourse. Conceived by Avital Barak, organised by AiR 351, supported by DGArtes2025 Jury member, Short Film Competition, BIOGRAF International Film & Moving Arts FestivalVila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal — inaugural edition2021 Jury member, Prémio Revelação / New Talent Award, DocLisboaLisbon, Portugal2018 – 2020 Teacher, Lisbon Japanese SchoolJapanese language and mathematicsEducation2016 Post-Graduate Diploma in Cinema Project Development, specialisation in Dramaturgy and Film DirectionLisbon Theatre and Film School (ESTC), Lisbon, Portugal2001 Internship in Management and Portfolio Production, Magnum PhotosParis, France2000 Photography, Istituto Europeo di DesignTurin, ItalyComplete credits available on request.

• Back